The Islamic Empires - The Formation (753-759)

• The Ottoman Empire (1289-1923)
  • Osman
    • The term Ottoman is from Osman Bey
    • Osman Bey was founder of the dynasty; founded in 1289
    • Bey means chief
    • Osman was the bey of a band of semi nomadic Turks who migrated to NW Anatolia in 13th century
    • Osman and his followers wanted to become ghazi
    • Ghazi: Muslim religious warriors
    • the poet Ahmadi described their ethos
      • he said the ghazi was the instrument of the religion
      • ghazi is sword of God
  • Ottoman Expansion
    • they were located on the borders of Byzantine empire
    • first great success: (1326) captured Anatolian city of Bursa (became capital of the Ottoman principality)

      Ghazi

    • 1352: seized fortress of Gallipoli and aided a claimant to the Byzantine throne
    • many ghazi flocked to the Ottomans
    • city of Edirne became second capital and a base for expansion into Balkans
    • Bursa became a major commercial and intellectual center
    • Had effective uses of gunpowder in battles

CP

• Ottoman Empire Expansion continued
  • Military machines important
  • ghazi recruits into two groups-> light calvary and volunteer infantry
  • slave troops formed, pro forces
  • 'devshirme' = institution that forced the Christian Balkans to sacrifice young boys to become slaves of the sultan
  • Janissaries=soldiers, 'yeni cheri' = turkish
• Mehmed the Conqueror
  • Mehmed II captured Constantinople in 1453 --> important to expansion
  • formed Istanbul
  • Mehmed= warrior of two land and two seas, absolute
  • great conqueror, successor abandoned his plan of total power of Europe
• Suleyman the Magnificent
  • Selim the Grim (1512-1520) expanded to Syria and Egypt
  • Suleyman the Magnificent(20-66) promoted expansion in SW Asia and Europe. (Tigris and Euphrates r.v., Baghdad)
  • Captured other countries reaching out to Danube and Vienna.
  • became major naval power
  • challenged powers in European seas

LA

• The Safavid Empire

• Shah Ismail
  • Was the founder of the empire
  • Claimed Persian imperial title of shah (reigned 1501-1524)
  • Proclaimed Twelver Shiism official religion of his realm
  • Proceeded to impose it by force on formerly Sunni population
  • Seized control of Iranian plateau and launched expeditions into Caucasus, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia

• The Safavids
  • Shah Ismail and successors traced ancestry back to Safi al-Din, leader of Sufi religious order in northwestern Persia
  • Safin al-Din's tomb at Ardabil became home to Shah Ismail's family (family was named "Safavids" after him)
  • Tomb became headquarters of his religious movement and center of conspiracy to win power for his descendants
  • Safavids changed religious preferences in order to gain popularity before settling on a form of Shiism that appealed to Turkish nomads moving into area in post-Mongol era

• Twelver Shiism
  • Held that there had been 12 infallible imams (religious leaders) after Muhammad, beginning with his cousin and son-in-law, Ali
  • The twelfth or "hidden" imam had gone into hiding around 874 to escape persecution
  • Twelver Shiites believed he was still alive and would return to take power
  • Ismail's father instructed Turkish followers to wear red hat with twelve pleats in memory of 12 Shiite imams
  • Became known as qizilbash ("red heads")
  • Safavid propaganda suggested Ismail was the hidden imam or even Allah's reincarnation
  • Qizilbash accepted pretensions since they resembled traditional Turkish conceptions of leadership that associated military leaders with divinity
  • Pretensions not accepted by Muslims
  • Qizilbash believed Ismail would make them invincible in battle and became loyal to Safavid cause

Battle of chaldiran (1514)

• Sha Ismail had many powerful enemies such as the Sunni ottomans
• Selim the Grim became sultan and he launched persecution of shiites in the ottoman empire and a full scal invasion of safavid territory
• At the battle of Chaldiran the Ottomans used heavy artility, and thousands of Janissaries equiped with fire arms
• the safavids knew about gun powder technology but refused to use it because they though it to be unreliable and un manly
• theyt believed in the protective charisma of Shah Ismail
• so the cavalry attacked the Ottomans fearlessly but suffered devastating casualties
• the Ottoman emnpire didn't have the resources to destroy their empire so the two states remained in conflict for two centuries
• After the Safavids recovered from the disaster at Chaldiran, they relied on the Persian bureacracy
• the successors of Ismail abandones the extreme ideology that associated the emporer Allah and favored a more conventional Twelver Shiism
• they assigned grants to qizilbash officers to retain their loyalty

Shah Abbas the great

• Revitalized the Safavid empire (1588-1629)
• He moved the capital to Isfahan, encourafed foreing tradeand reformed military and administrative institutions
• He increased the use of gun powder weapons
• and that led the state into many victories
• his campaigns brought most of NW Iran, the caucasus, and Mesopotamia under Safavid rule

M.M. edited...